International GT Open: Race 1 (Spoilers)

An all-Ferrari top three in Super GT and a further podium in the GTS class in the first race of the International GT Open championship at Germany’s Nurburgring circuit.

There had been hope of better in the early stages of the Super GT battle, as the early leader was the experienced Andrea Montermini in Scuderia Villorba Corse’s Ferrari 458 Italia GT3. However, when it came time for the pit stops to switch dirvers, quickest was the Chevrolet crew of Puerto Rico’s Miguel Ramos and Nicky Pastorelli, who managed to take the lead at half distance, mainly due to a great drive from the Italo-Dutchman.

Niccolo Schiro was unable to keep up the pace shown by Montermini and dropped down a further two places. First he was passed by the SMP Racing-Russian Bears Ferrari 458 Italia GT3, driven by Italy’s Daniel Zampieri and Russia’s Roman Mavlanov, who finished second overall and first in GT3 and then by the other Chevrolet crewed by Belgian Maxime Soulet and Dutchman Nick Catsburg.

However, in GTS it was all about Ferrari. The other SMP Racing-Russian Bears 458 Italia was first in the hands of Spain’s Jose Maria Perez Aicart and Russia’s Viacheslav Maleev, fifth overall at the flag. There was a great dice for the remaining podium places between two AF Corse Ferraris. Second spot went to car 54 in the hands of Britain’s Duncan Cameron and Ireland’s Matt Griffin, who just beat car 55 crewed by the German Claudio Sdanewitsch and Italy’s Federico Leo.